A roadmap for navigating partner engagement in community-based autopsy studies: Lessons from the field in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Background: The measurement of cause-specific mortality is critical for health system planning but remains a challenge in many low-resource settings due to societal, legal, and logistical barriers. We present a co-development process with community members for the design and implementation of an autopsy program to improve cause of death data in a historically underserved population.

Methods: We sought to develop an autopsy program at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS).